


Almost every door's an exit (just not this one)

by Duke_Bird



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Enemies With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Self-Indulgent Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duke_Bird/pseuds/Duke_Bird
Summary: For the terror_exe prompt:character study: francis crozier, victorian england, the expedition, repressions
Relationships: (past), Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Captain Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52
Collections: @terror_exe Flash Fest





	Almost every door's an exit (just not this one)

It had started out small, this. These. Their indiscretions. 

It would be simple, Francis had thought, this thing that had been hanging between them since that first winter at Baffin Bay, in their little magnetic observation hut; a bit of comfort, a warm hand in the dark. (They did not discuss when it progressed to things that were not hands. A mouth was a mouth was a mouth; buggery, an offense punishable by hanging, on the ice or in port. And so they did not discuss it.) No need to play coy, to plan and execute a suit, to make love with gifts and elaborate words; this was not England, and proud English sensibilities grew as thin and useless as the arctic air that burnt the lungs as much as filled them. In that little hut, a mile up from either ship and with a howling wind to their backs, the haughty Commander James Fitzjames, late of the steamship _Clio_ (who could not even read the instruments properly on his own after nearly two weeks) had stretched a questing hand into Francis’ bedroll and Francis had huffed a sigh and rolled over.

And Francis had thought it would be small.

With James—James Clark Ross, not this James—this vice had been nothing. Well, not nothing; a pleasant diversion after dinner, a friendly hand on a hip. Like his successor Sir John, Sir James had kept the Erebus’ great cabin for his personal rooms, and Francis had been in and out at all hours, the laughter of the Officers’ Mess over dinner following him in to crosscheck a chart or log against James’ before he set off on the dinghy back to his own cabin and tiny berth on Terror. Sometimes James found him there in his cabin and poured a glass of scotch for them both, spoke of his lovely Anne’s face and of the girl Sophia who would surely be waiting for Francis back at Van Diemen’s Land (and Crozier would interrupt to say that she was no more girl than he was, and not his woman besides, but—he would find James’ clever hands had wandered by then and he did not much care.) Even when James had worn a dress for him, and Captain Crozier had escorted the luminous Miss Ross to the Erebus and Terror Ball, it had been a light thing, Ross laughing as Francis pulled back the curls of his dark wig with a theatric flourish to press a kiss to his nape, and Ross had whispered, "Sophia Cracroft is a lucky woman indeed, to have such a valiant suitor." When Ross’ hands had made their way to Francis’ flies that night, pink crinoline still spread around his ankles, he had pulled strange faces and made a mockery of femininity, curling his rough palm against Francis and laughing. And Francis had laughed too, at the ridiculousness of this unnatural dance they found themselves in, a parody of intimacy. There would be no wedding here on the ice, no proposals and no honor lost; a dress might make a fine fantasy but it did not make a woman. 

It was not so light with James Fitzjames. Perhaps it was because they did not talk civilly at any other time that it was like this. They certainly did not talk at this one. Francis could barely stand to listen to the man (though he did, he did) and had even less to say to him. With Ross they had talked and laughed through it, a conversation suspended and re-entered after the act as if nothing had occurred; but when James Fitzjames appeared in his cabin after a command dinner on Terror and silently locked the door, there was no excuse for his presence. No words filled their mouths or diverted their attention, and the air would go queer and quiet, the only sounds the soft susurration of skin on wool and shortly thereafter something much more obscene. If Francis was lucky the howling arctic wind would cover over any sounds they made, but if he wasn’t, he might have to seal his mouth over Fitzjames’, bite those thin lips and smother the lewd noises the man couldn’t seem to contain. They didn’t talk, and so there was nothing for Francis to say when Fitzjames descended onto one knee and muffled the sounds himself, leaving Francis to stuff a fist in his own mouth and close his eyes. For this sin, it was not the first time; and it wouldn’t be the last.

On this ice, with this James, they never spoke of Francis’ other lovers. James never spoke of his own. He spoke of the small mass of tissue directly below his heart to the Terror’s officers over dinner, but when he slipped into Francis’ berth afterward and Francis traced it with his tongue he spoke of nothing at all. Occasionally, very occasionally, he would say, "Sir John will expect me back before last Dog Watch." Always clipped and exact, delivered to some wall or instrument as if to the room at large. He never looked into Francis’ eyes. That is when they would straighten their clothes, and in a few short breaths return to being near-perfect strangers.

Francis had known, then, that it was not small. Had known when he sat in that chair and watched Fitzjames’ retreating back, picked up the whiskey he had poured for Fitzjames (untouched, but still he ran his finger around the rim as if he might catch some remnant there) and felt as he had felt when Sophia had pulled him to his feet in the garden in Van Diemen’s Land, pity in her eyes, and said, "Sir John will expect me back before supper," that he was a thrice-damned fool and it was not small. 

But by then it had been far too late to stop it.


End file.
